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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963897">The Heart of a Lion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvilAuthoress/pseuds/TheEvilAuthoress'>TheEvilAuthoress</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 09:15:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963897</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvilAuthoress/pseuds/TheEvilAuthoress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When they first cross paths, the boy is nothing but another slave thrown into the ring for the crowd’s amusement.</p><p>Fighting is the only thing Alito’s ever known.</p><p>-</p><p>Written for Zexal Month Writer's Week Day 1 prompt "What do the history books say? Detail the events of a character’s past life."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Heart of a Lion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic deals with slavery. More specific warnings in the end notes for anyone who wants 'em.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they first cross paths, the boy is nothing but another slave thrown into the ring for the crowd’s amusement.</p><p>“He’s a child,” Leon protests; the boy looks even younger than him. “That lion will eviscerate him as soon it’s set free.”</p><p>His father, seated next to him, laughs. “I wonder. I hear that ‘child’ took down three soldiers before he was captured.”</p><p>That scrawny little toothpick? Leon doesn’t believe it.</p><p>The child wins. Bare handed.</p><p>“A warrior like that shouldn’t be locked in a cage,” Leon breathes, awestruck, as the next challenger is released into the ring.</p><p>“He is a prisoner of war,” his father scoffs. “We set him loose and he will turn on us.”</p><p>Leon has never questioned the way the gladiator matches work before, and his father’s words make sense, however...</p><p>“What if I could gain his trust?”</p><p>His father laughs and pats his head and doesn’t actually answer his question.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The boy continues to win his matches without ever picking up a weapon. Instead of wild beasts, the ring masters begin pitting him against other slaves and criminals. The boy continues to win bare handed, even against trained soldiers.</p><p>Leon is transfixed.</p><p>No one knows the boy’s name. He refuses to speak to the guards. He earns the nickname ‘merciful lion’ because he can take down a lion barehanded but never kills his opponents. He’ll break bones and leave them unconscious, but never dead. His first match against another human, the guards didn’t even realize the loser was still alive until after the boy had been escorted out. The trend continues until one guard tries to force the boy to kill his opponent or face death himself.</p><p>The boy has become such a fan favorite, there’s an outcry from the crowd. Leon politely suggests they intervene to prevent a riot, but his father only smiles and pats his shoulder. With two swift movements the guard lies unconscious and the crowd cheers once more. The other guard has enough sense to escort the boy back to his cell.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Leon’s father is a man who glorifies the blood shed on the battlefield. This inevitably leads him to his death. Leon’s mother died in childbirth so Leon takes the throne at the tender age of 16. He has a better head for politics than the last king, his advisors say, and much less reckless too.</p><p>Until he steps into the ring with the boy dubbed ‘merciful lion’. He can hear his advisors shrieking over the roar of the crowd and doesn’t give a rat’s ass as the boy stands across from him, appraising him like he can already tell Leon differs from the rest of the warriors.</p><p>Leon holds up his sword and drives it into the dirt. The boy’s single visible eye widens before narrowing in suspicion.</p><p>“I want a fair match,” Leon says as he drops his shield and kicks it aside.</p><p>The boy charges before Leon falls into stance. There has always been something captivating about the way he fights, but up close he is beautiful, exhilarating, <em> breathtaking </em>.</p><p>Leon has prided himself on being Rome’s strongest warrior for two years now. The boy lands him in the dirt in a matter of minutes.</p><p>Leon wheezes, blinking stars out of his eyes as a sharp knee digs into his chest. Maybe someone screams his name, or maybe his title, Leon can’t tell with the ringing in his ears; but something in that single eye above him changes, and Leon braces for the final blow.</p><p>It never comes.</p><p>The boy rises to his feet and walks away. A guard is quick to scamper to his emperor’s aid.</p><p>“Wait!” Leon gasps, struggling to sit up, and heaves air into his lungs. “Tell me your name.”</p><p>The boy pauses and glances back. “If you win,” he says so quietly Leon almost thinks he imagined it, and Leon knows this is a double edged challenge both to win and let the boy live long enough to answer the question.</p><p>The guards bar the boy from leaving, quibbling that a clear victor has not yet been decided.</p><p>“He won. Let him go,” Leon demands, still winded, and watches the boy disappear into the tunnel before limping out of the ring.</p><p>His advisors screech at him like banshees.</p><p>Worth it.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“You again,” the boy mumbles when Leon next steps into the ring with him. He already looks battered from his previous matches.</p><p>“I wanna know your name.” Leon grins, once more discarding his weapon and shield.</p><p>Again, the boy attacks before Leon can fall into proper stance. It’s just as exhilarating as last time. He lasts a few minutes longer this round, but the end of the match still finds his back to the ground with an elbow in the hollow of his throat.</p><p>Darkness threatens to consume him as he chokes, then the pressure is gone. When Leon is done hacking, the boy is already gone.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Why don't you finish me off?” Leon asks at the end of their third match, honestly curious. As emperor of the empire that invaded his home and enslaved him, of all the boy’s opponents, Leon should be the one he has most reason to kill.</p><p>“I’m not a murderer.” The boy glares before disappearing into the tunnel.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“If you win, I’ll give you your freedom,” Leon says as he discards his weapon at the beginning of their fourth match.</p><p>The boy’s eye widens, his balance visibly shaken. Leon discards his shield and waits until the boy has recovered himself before taking the first move.</p><p>Striking first does not give him the advantage he hoped.</p><p>A brutal exchange of blows later, Leon lies in the dirt, fairly certain his arm is dislocated. The boy towers above him, leaning his weight into the foot on Leon’s chest.</p><p>“As promised.” Leon coughs and attempts to grin through the discomfort. “Freedom is yours.”</p><p>The boy stares down at him, then shakes his head. “Free someone else.”</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>“Markus,” the boy rasps, removes his foot and walks away, leaving a very confused Leon in his wake.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Leon also prides himself on honesty, so he goes down to the holding cells to inquire about this ‘Markus’ and finds an old man of the boy’s apparent nationality that has somehow escaped being thrown to the lions. The boy has been bartering with the guards, Leon learns - so much for ‘refuses to speak’, he just won’t say his name - fighting in place of the weaker prisoners.</p><p>“If the point is entertainment, then what’s more entertaining - someone who knows how to fight, or a slaughter?”</p><p>As long as the boy fights, the rest of them are safe. Leon had thought it odd that the boy fought multiple matches near daily.</p><p>Markus leaves captivity with a recommendation bearing the royal seal to start work at a local potter, and Leon leaves with a newfound awe for the ‘merciful lion’.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Leon makes the same offer next time they fight. After he wins, the boy shakes his head again and tells Leon to “free someone else” before giving a name and disappearing.</p><p>This time the name belongs to a young girl, just past puberty, shielding what must be her younger sister. Both girls have the same dark skin as the boy. Leon looks at the older girl’s torn skirts and frees them both.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>This action doesn’t go unnoticed. “You freed them both,” the boy says, eyeing Leon for the first time with a smidgen less distrust.</p><p>Belatedly, it occurs to Leon that the boy was testing him. Obviously the elder sister would not have left the younger to suffer as she had.</p><p>Leon laughs despite himself and offers the boy freedom for a third time.</p><p>Once again, the boy refuses and gives Leon a name.</p><p>Once again, that person walks free.</p><p>The next time they fight, Leon skips the offer and asks instead for another name.</p><p>The boy continues to win.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Leon investigates every name the boy gives him and always visits the person before freeing them. Almost always the names lead to another prisoner of war with dark skin, old, young, weak, or frail, or sometimes a person wrongly accused. The boy never gives him the name of an actual criminal.</p><p>Once all the prisoners with the highest mortality are freed, the boy moves on to the  names of what must remain of the more able bodied of his fellow war prisoners.</p><p>One by one, his kin walk free while he continues to fight.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“How old are you?” Leon asks once, stopping by the boy’s cell after freeing the latest in a growing list of names.</p><p>The boy blinks groggily from his cot. “How long have I been here?”</p><p>“A little more than a year.”</p><p>“Season?”</p><p>“Nearly harvest.”</p><p>“14,” the boy mumbles and rolls over. His back is covered in bruises not acquired in the ring.</p><p>Leon’s heart hurts.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Why do you insist on fighting me barehanded?’ the boy asks once as Leon tosses his sword and shield aside. The guards <em> should </em> just stop giving them to him but at this point it’s probably become part of the show.</p><p>“I told you, I want a fair fight,” Leon says.</p><p>The boy shrugs and charges. </p><p>“Would it make a difference?” Leon rasps once the boy has claimed victory. He has, after all, felled men twice his size wielding all manner of weapons.</p><p>“Against you? Maybe,” the boy admits, then flees the ring as if he’s revealed a terrible secret.</p><p>The next time they face off, Leon refuses to even bring the metal into the arena with him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Gradually, their matches grow longer. Leon can fight nearly toe to toe with the ‘merciful lion’. Sometimes they even banter. They grow into a strange but easy companionship inside the ring, facing each other as equals; because once they square off the only things that matter are their bodies and their clash of fists. Only when the victor stands tall do they return to their roles of emperor and gladiator.</p><p>“Alright, who’s name will it be today?” Leon peels himself from the dirt. Long past are the days when the boy’s tackles left him wheezing and half conscious. Now they have an unspoken rule that the first to pin the other to the ground wins. Otherwise the match could last half the day. It once did.</p><p>The boy stares at him, brow furrowed. He opens his mouth then freezes, looking helplessly lost. Leon has never seen the boy look so much like a child in all the time he’s known him.</p><p>He has never once hesitated to give a name either.</p><p>The cells had been rather barren last time...</p><p>Oh!</p><p>“Are you the last?” Leon asks.</p><p>The boy nods.</p><p>“Then I think your own freedom is long overdue.”</p><p>Shaking his head vigorously, the boy darts out of the arena, and Leon can’t comprehend the sheer amount of terror he’s just witnessed.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Fighting is the only thing Alito’s ever known. Even before the invasion, before the arena.</p><p>His mother was poor. He never knew his father. He had to be strong to protect mama, so he’d been throwing his fists even since he could walk. He’d beat up the local bullies to keep the weaker kids safe, guard crops from wild animals or thieves for a few coins.</p><p>He was used to fighting bigger opponents wielding weapons with nothing but rocks or his bare hands. The arena was no different.</p><p>For him.</p><p>He kicked, screamed, and begged while the shiny bastards threw his people to be slaughtered one by one. They started with the farmers with their broad shoulders that had never swung anything but a hoe or sickle. When they reached for old man Markus, he straight up sunk his teeth into flesh and demanded to fight in his place. They called him ‘feral’ and ‘wild beast’ and shoved him into the arena.</p><p>Once Alito knew he could trade his own safety for theirs, there was no length he wasn’t willing to go to keep his people safe. Kira’s torn skirt and tear streaked face made it all too apparent that his efforts weren’t infallible.</p><p>Then <em> that guy </em> happened and Alito seized the chance, fully expecting it to backfire. But the leader of such despicable men actually let old man Markus go free, then both Kira and Cleo. And everyone else Alito named, even if it didn't happen the same day.</p><p>Now Alito is the last, and he huddles on his cot too afraid of what ‘freedom’ might mean when fighting has kept him alive all this time.</p><p>All he’s ever been good at is throwing his fists.</p><p>Footsteps echo heavily in the silence. Probably one of the guards come to torment him or collect ‘payment’. Alito snorts. There’s no one left to protect, no reason not to break their stupid arms.</p><p>“You won the match.”</p><p>Alito’s head snaps up at <em> that guy's </em> voice.</p><p>Honestly, he should have expected this.</p><p>“Your people are free. You’ve more than earned your freedom. Why do you still refuse?” The emperor’s eyes look so damn <em> sad </em>. Alito looks away. He doesn’t need that pity.</p><p>“I like fighting,” Alito mumbles.</p><p>A heavy silence. Alito doesn’t understand what this guy wants.</p><p>“Do you like it, or do you think it’s the only thing you’re good at?”</p><p>Alito gnaws his lip, breaking open a scab. “Both,” he admits.</p><p>“Wouldn’t it better to fight on your own terms instead of at the whims of another?”</p><p>Alito doesn’t answer.</p><p>“If you’re worried about work...I would willingly hire you as my bodyguard.”</p><p>What? Alito’s head snaps up again, gaping at the sincerity on the emperor’s face.</p><p>“You’re more than qualified.”</p><p>“I could kill you in your sleep.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t. You’re not a murderer,” the emperor parrots Alito’s own words back to him. The fact he even remembers that comment shocks Alito more than the blind trust.</p><p>Except maybe it’s not as blind as it seems. Alito has always believed that actions are louder than words, and that a person’s true nature comes out in a fight. Maybe two years of constantly trading blows with their fists has taught them more about each other than they realize. Maybe in moments of raw passion, their hearts were laid bare.</p><p>And that is the most terrifying thing of all.</p><p>Turning away, Alito doesn’t answer.</p><p>The emperor sighs. “The offer remains open.”</p><p>Alito sits unmoving as the echo of footsteps fade.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Two days later, a soldier fetches Leon with a message from the cells. The boy stands when he approaches, a fire burning in his eye.</p><p>“I’ll take that offer.”</p><p>Leon opens the cell and offers his hand. The boy takes it.</p><p>“I still don’t know your name.”</p><p>“You still haven’t won,” the boy replies with a cheeky grin as if they are facing off in the area and, <em> oh </em>, how Leon could get used to this.</p><p>“What then?” Leon pouts. “Am I to call you ‘merciful lion’ for the rest of my life?”</p><p>The expected comeback doesn't come as the boy's expression falls.</p><p>“It’s all I have left.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Leon can’t even say he understands. How could he? “That must be difficult.” The words sound hollow even to his own ears.</p><p>The boy laughs, short and sharp. “Do me a favor and never do that again. You sound pathetic.”</p><p>“Excuse me??”</p><p>“That’s more like it!” The boy waltzes toward his freedom with a stretch of his arms. “Now where can the emperor’s personal bodyguard get a bath and a decent meal around here?”</p><p>That cheeky little-</p><p>Leon wouldn’t have it any other way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for two mentions of implied rape and one of physical abuse. Three sentences in total.</p><p>So this thing kinda got away from me, and I still have ideas, but me thinks it's long enough. For now.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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